In order to attain access to the edible portion of a bivalve mollusk, it is necessary to open the mollusk shells. While a mullusk may be processed by manually cracking open the shell, such handling is impractical on a production basis because of high labor costs, low rate of production, etc. The use of mechanical apparatus to process mullusks for causing separation of the shells is known. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 2,047,688.
Prior art devices which subject the shells to heat by conduction are relatively inefficient. It has been proposed to tumble the shells as they are being heated. Such tumbling improves the efficiency of transmitting heat into the mullusk shells. A major deficiency of the prior art is the failure to efficiently utilize the heat available whereby production rates are much slower than those capable of being attained.